"One of Hogan-Howe’s first moves after arriving at the Met was to use the Official Secrets Act to try to compel a Guardian journalist to reveal the source of a story about celebrity phone hacking. The Official Secrets Act is meant principally to be used to trap spies, traitors and those who threaten the defence of the realm — not reporters going about their legitimate business. This was a disproportionate and oppressive use of the law.

Similarly, legislation designed to combat terrorism and serious crime, such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, is used with alarming frequency by Hogan-Howe and other police chiefs to snoop on the internet and phone records of law-abiding citizens. This is the tactic of the police state. Not so much total policing as totalitarian policing."

When I got my driving licence in the mid-seventies, I was advised to have a ten pound note folded inside my licence. Being foreign I had to ask why and the whole thing was patiently explained to me.

On another occasion I was stopped when riding pillion as I didn't have a helmet on. A very posh girlfriend was the driiver and after two policemen had established that I'd forgotten to sign my licence, they came back to my flat with us, had a couple of beers and my posh friend found one of the policemen and she had mutual friends in Scotland. That's as deep as I thought corruption went.

Certainly would not dream of keeping folded money in my licence in NL!

Met probed over abuse 'corruption'Breaking newsThe police watchdog is to investigate alleged corruption in the Metropolitan Police dealing with claims of child sex offences from the 1970s to the 2000s.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission said the allegations were of "historic, high-level corruption of the most serious nature".

Sarah Green, deputy chairwoman of the IPCC, said "allegations of this nature are of grave concern".

Home Secretary says new inquiry will uncover more shocking allegationsWarned the public that they are yet to grasp the full scale of the scandalInquiry examine claims against NHS, schools, care homes and politiciansMay described institutional child abuse as 'the darkness in our midst'